Wrap L-System/Fractals around a Sphere
This is an approach using Alessandro Zomparelli's Tissue Add-on, rather than Animation Nodes, roughly following his examples presented here and here.


Create a Unit Plane, with its own origin at its minimum XY, placed at the World 0.
Add a single vertex to the object at its center.
Place the 3D cursor at the center of the sphere you wish to cover, and set the transformation pivot to it.
Duplicate the plane &amp; vertex, using only rotations about the 3D cursor to place it. (Planes will be the growth nodes) - E extrude the first central vertex and snap to other vertices in the now multi-plane object to create branches.
AltM merge vertices by proximity, and delete planes you do not wish to be growth nodes.
When done, this is your Base object.  Alt D make an instance of it to be the Component.




(The physical sphere is just there for illustration)


In the Tissue panel, hit 'Tessellate'
In the Tessalations Data region, 'Tissue' panel, you will be able to adjust the settings:




If the coordinates have been set correctly, you should wind up with something like the left example below. Delete faces and remove doubles again to get the one on the right. 



Which gives you a spherical L-system topology to treat as you wish.